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- [00:03]
JVL
Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. Guys, it's Liberation Day. It's going to happen. The markets are going to close. And once the markets close, then Donald Trump is going to be willing to share his beautiful, very strong, historic. Many people are saying with tears in their eyes, fantastic vision for the American economy. Guys, are you excited, Sarah?
- [00:29]
Tim Miller
Can somebody give me the genesis of Liberation Day?
- [00:32]
Sarah Longwell
I think my understanding from the great reporting that the mainstream media is doing holding this administration to account is that Howard Lutnick, the Department of Commerce Secretary, this was a brainchild of his and Donald Trump took to. It seems like some of the other colleagues who are whispering anonymously to those reporters aren't quite as fond of it. And that, Howard, obviously, if you do a disastrous economy breaking executive order, it's the Department of Commerce Secretary is the one that gets held to account. So if things go really bad, he might end up being the fall guy, but I think that's it. I don't know if he had watched Independence Day recently or was listening to the song Expiration.
- [01:20]
Tim Miller
What are we being liberated from besides our wallets?
- [01:25]
Sarah Longwell
I think we're liberated from the evil foreigners who are controlling our economy.
- [01:32]
Tim Miller
See, this is interesting messaging, since neither of you can tell us what we're being liberated from decisively. You both have different ideas. And here's the thing, though, I think that it's not the worst idea to name it something absurd that has no resonance and that won't stick ultimately, other than as a joke for something that's very likely going to have negative repercussions. Like, it's not like he's naming it Trumponomics. I wish he was naming it Trumponomics. If he was naming it like Trump's tariffs, which is what we should call them, Trump's taxing tariffs that, that he gets held accountable for.
- [02:09]
Sarah Longwell
Nonsense term is better branding than naming it after yourself. That's, that's, that's good way. It goes against Trump's instincts. Usually, you know, he puts his name on everything.
- [02:18]
Tim Miller
Right. And I'm just saying in this particular case, it's a, it's a, it's a smart move. He doesn't realize it, but I think ultimately not putting his name on it is better since it's obviously not going to be good.
- [02:29]
JVL
Well, the markets are up bigly today, Newsmax. Down.
- [02:35]
Tim Miller
The markets have rebounded slightly from their, their low.
- [02:38]
JVL
It's not that they did jump today. Literally, the markets jumped on, on word that Trump was soon going to kick Elon Musk to the curb, which is hysterical. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens tomorrow. I think the Newsmax.
- [02:53]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, wow. Big drop for Newsmax today. Yeah, down to 46.
- [02:58]
Tim Miller
It's a pump and dump scheme.
- [03:00]
JVL
Who? Allegedly.
- [03:03]
Tim Miller
Allegedly.
- [03:04]
JVL
Allegedly.
- [03:06]
Sarah Longwell
Who are the moocs who went along with this? What were they expecting?
- [03:10]
JVL
I don't know. It's an astonishing. We'll see where that stock settles. But like four weeks from now, if it is nowhere near 185 or whatever it was yesterday, it's going to be one. I mean, the type of thing that in a different time the SEC might have looked into.
- [03:30]
Tim Miller
Do we still have an sec?
- [03:32]
JVL
I don't think there's any danger of that this time.
- [03:34]
Sarah Longwell
I don't think we have an active sec. No. Well, there may be. I guess the few people who are left working there probably are going to investigate pro democracy non profits. The accounting is pretty good for you, but besides that, I don't think so.
- [03:49]
JVL
All right, so let's move on from Liberation Day. We'll have to do more next week when we do the aftermath of it. Last night in Wisconsin, the fate of Western civilization was in the balance. And the good news is Western Civ won by 10 points. No, no, it won't. Right? Is that not what Elon.
- [04:09]
Sarah Longwell
No. Elon thought that the Republicans need to win to save Western civilization from Sharia law and the moors and the moops and you know, all the wokes and the transgender people. And unfortunately that didn't happen.
- [04:24]
Tim Miller
I don't know. Elon today is saying the only thing that really mattered was the voter ID law.
- [04:29]
JVL
That's why he, you see, that's why he talked about the voter ID barely at all and fixing stated on because it was a positional gain. You see, Sarah and Elon is a genius who is never wrong and who always makes things happen because he's rich. And when you're rich, it means that you're just smarter than everybody else. That's a thing I've been told.
- [04:50]
Sarah Longwell
You know what the funniest reaction was for me was from my old friend Carrie Lake. I was in the Uber scrolling through my little social media and Charlie Kirk, who like weirdly continues to kind of at times be like the responsible one in this crew of crazy people. Or maybe not responsible, but the like strategic minded one, like the one in touch with reality. At least he has a very lengthy post about how. Yeah, we say a lot on here. It's the inverse of like, how the coalitions have changed. Democrats now have this structural advantage and special elections just because the nature of who's in the party. He gases up the Republican side of this a little bit by being like, our party is the people that shower after work. And like, kind of some silly stuff. But, like, the point is correct. And Carrie replied to that tweet with, or sorry, ends it with, we need to do a lot of work to help turn our people out, and we need to focus on that. And that's going to be if MAGA is going to succeed. That has to be a project. And Carrie replies, and we also need to look into the election fraud continues.
- [06:01]
Tim Miller
Ten points worth of election fraud. Dude. Do you know this is. You know why it could be fraudulent? This is a stat that just blew my mind. Do you know that Crawford last night outperformed Hillary Clinton's margin in Dane County? Like she did. She put up some numbers from these low propensity or, sorry, high propensity voters. Where are you going? Are you running away?
- [06:26]
Sarah Longwell
I'm gonna start rotating around. I'm in the studio. I'm in a small Meadowlark media studio. I'm trying to find the right backdrop. Sorry, sorry, audio listeners. Is that better? The lighting in here is a little garish.
- [06:40]
Tim Miller
You look handsome. No matter what happens, you just stay put.
- [06:44]
Sarah Longwell
Where should I go?
- [06:46]
JVL
Wow, guys, we're on a tight schedule today. Sarah, you were making a great point.
- [06:50]
Tim Miller
I was making a great point, but he started moving.
- [06:54]
Sarah Longwell
I'll stay right here.
- [06:56]
Tim Miller
I'm going to switch to a different great point, though, that I want to make, which is around sort of the Trump third term nonsense and Trump, when Trump is not directly on the ballot, Republicans cannot win. We have now seen this in every off year election. And look, it cuts both ways a little bit because Trump also, I think certainly in the beginning, in the earlier days, when Trump was still a real shock to the political system, he also drove turnout against him. Right. He was a turnout machine kind of in both ways. I think as the body politic has adjusted to Trump, he in 2024 was not the turnout mechanism of the opposition that he once was. However, the Republican Party does not know how to turn people out when he is not directly on the ballot. And I think this portends badly for Republicans in the long term. And it's one of the reasons that I think there's like, well, I don't know, if he doesn't run for a third term, what do we have? Like, because it is not. These people are not Turning out for Republicans. They turn out for Trump specifically. And it's not just that they're low propensity. This is where. This is the one piece of Charlie Kirk's analysis that I'm not certain.
- [08:11]
JVL
Go ahead, Sarah. Say what they are.
- [08:14]
Tim Miller
What?
- [08:15]
Sarah Longwell
Cultists.
- [08:18]
JVL
I thought you're going to go in a different direction.
- [08:21]
Tim Miller
I was going to say that they're just there for Trump.
- [08:24]
JVL
Oh, sure, that's one way.
- [08:26]
Tim Miller
What were you going to say?
- [08:27]
JVL
I thought you were going to do the voice.
- [08:29]
Tim Miller
You thought I was going to break into Cletus?
- [08:31]
JVL
I thought you were going to bring out Cletus.
- [08:32]
Tim Miller
Yes.
- [08:33]
Sarah Longwell
No, he's just hopeful.
- [08:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah, but, but, but, but. Kick the tires on that for a second. It's not just Charlie Kirk's point is that high, high proposition voters or high propensity voters are now the purview of Democrats. They're educated. Politics is their life. They follow it. They read the newspaper, they watch the news, they turn out. Fact. True Republicans used to have those people and they don't anymore. Low propensity voters, he said. People who shower twice a day. Meaning, I guess, like people who shower before work and after work because they, you know, they do real jobs or they get their hands dirty. And he's, he's, he's correct about this, too. Working class voters now much more likely to vote for Donald Trump. I'm not sure they're much more likely.
- [09:14]
JVL
Guys like J.D. vance who worked in VC firms. Is that what he meant?
- [09:17]
Tim Miller
Not. Not like J.D. but they're voters. The voters. It is true. They are more working class voters.
- [09:21]
Sarah Longwell
And the best piece of evidence for this is that these people showed up for the general election in 2024 and voted only for Trump. And that is why Alyssa Slotkin is a senator right now. And why Tammy Baldwin.
- [09:36]
Tim Miller
And why Tammy Baldwin's a senator.
- [09:38]
Sarah Longwell
That's right, because that was basically it. It was not crossover voters. So what does the Republican Party do that?
- [09:47]
Tim Miller
Yeah. What does the Republican Party do without him?
- [09:49]
JVL
Well, the good news is we'll never have to find that out. I wanted two other things about Wisconsin. The first is Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley had this to say. I think the way Judge Crawford ran her race was disgusting. I'm not looking forward to working with her. She's bought and paid for by the Democratic Party. First of all, hostile work environment. Second of all, yeah, these are, these are nonpartisan elections that they have. Was Brad Schimmel not bought and paid for by the Republican Party, or was he only bought and paid for by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world who dumped like $20 million into the race. It's the, it's the weirdest. And again, this woman is a supreme state supreme court justice. She is supposed to be like an intellectual or a fair minded person who can make intelligent distinctions about the real world around her. She's a fucking. And this is, I don't want to cast shade on any, any particular state. All of our, they're, you know, they are laboratories of democracy. They are there. This is. We love all the different colors of the rainbow in our states. What sort of system does direct election of state supreme court judges? I, I was looking at a map how, how the states choose their state supreme court justices and it's, it's insane.
- [11:28]
Tim Miller
How do you think they should be chosen?
- [11:31]
JVL
I, I think you should probably have them either governor appointed through a nominating commission, which is a large chunk or just governor appointed maybe elected by the legislature could also do it like. But there ought to be a degree of separation between the demos and the judges.
- [11:54]
Sarah Longwell
I don't think that the elected by the legislature would do you much good in some of these states. This is not really relevant to our show map but I mean the way that we do a lot of this stuff is really dumb and our democracy is fundamentally broken and unfortunately it's not going to be that good for the Democrats to run as democracy reform right now. So I like in Louisiana last week we had to vote on four amendments that were totally indecipherable for a normal human what exactly that you were voting for. And they all went down mostly because we had our own little mini resistance and backlash to MAGA as the Republican governor was trying to jam these things through. So that's another good sign to go down in Louisiana. But yeah, no, I'm with you. Supreme Supreme Court elections where you spend 20, 25 million or whatever from the richest man in the world to elect a former attorney general. It's an insane way to do a system.
- [12:58]
Tim Miller
Well, the whole thing was $100 million. I mean the amount of money that got poured into that. I mean Elon was handing giant cartoon checks to people.
- [13:06]
JVL
Yeah. Like he said fucking McMahon.
- [13:08]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And the first time he did it, it was clearly a violation because it was. And so he like recastly allegedly. I don't.
- [13:14]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, I have a question for you. Maybe this is dumb, but when we were growing up, all the way through 2016 actually was very popular for kind of the reformist candidates to really talk about campaign finance reform and forming the system. This was a big McCain thing. You know, for me, as an establishment guy, that's kind of the thing. I didn't like that much about McCain. I think McCain, Feingold had some unintended consequences. We'll put that aside for a second. Verney did this. Gates. Gates even kind of did this. So even up till recently, is that something that, is there any juice there for the Dems? Should they be just like running about, like maybe instead of socializing grocery stores like that guy in New York wants to do, maybe we should socialize elections and, and just have government funded elections or like, you know, I don't know. I mean, obviously you can't. With the Supreme Court. I think a lot of the juice was a lot of people's energy for this one out because of Citizens United. And people are like, there's nothing we can do if Elon Musk comes in. But just because there's nothing we can do maybe doesn't mean that you shouldn't run on it.
- [14:16]
Tim Miller
I do think that Democrats didn't, and maybe it was because I do think all of us missed a little bit how much money Elon was putting into this election. I would say normally if somebody was putting this because he, he didn't do it a normal way, right? He didn't fund through a packer. He just set up an LLC and just started jamming out dollars because he didn't care about disclosure, he didn't care about any of that. And I think that the idea that Elon Musk was trying to buy the Supreme Court seat did matter to Democrat, to voters in Wisconsin. They didn't like the idea that he was trying to by a local seat. And I wish, I think that was a missed opportunity in the general election just because I think it got caught people off guard. It was like pretty late in the game when he started dumping money. But he put a ton of money into Trump's election. And the idea that Elon sort of bought it for Trump seems like normal, fertile Dem territory that they never really did anything with.
- [15:16]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I agree with that. And part of that is just because like our presidential elections, like there's just so much money in them now that it's kind of like just picking out the Elon thing might not have felt, I don't know, it might not have landed with people. But as a broader messaging, which is this system is fucking broken. You can tie it into the oligarchs, like we've got, like, we have the oligarchs here. People are buying their way onto the inauguration stage. I understand the Supreme Court has ruled certain ways, but there's got to be some shit we can do to like, create some limits on this and to take the. Bring the power back to the people. I don't know, it just seems like it might be a.
- [15:55]
Tim Miller
So this is just one of the things that is. That has actually distorted our politics is that the powers now, the money power is actually quite close to the people. And so it's actually small. It's not like it's just the big money people. That is. It was like during the McCain Feingold.
- [16:09]
Sarah Longwell
Right.
- [16:09]
Tim Miller
It was much more like, well, pharma's putting this money in or other big industries that have, you know, issues in front of the government and that. That felt corrupting. Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene is highly incentivized to act like a lunatic because then she can go raise small dollar donations. Same across the board. Right. So the democratization of money didn't have the salutatory effect that people hoped it would.
- [16:29]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I want to be 100% clear here. Substantively, I don't think that there's any hope for this. I think that our current, the small dollar system is probably worse than big dollars. Come again? And that, like, really, this is not something that is probably fixable. I'm just saying that, like, politically speaking is a way to kind of take the mantle back here.
- [16:48]
JVL
Yeah.
- [16:49]
Sarah Longwell
Maybe there's some.
- [16:49]
JVL
Maybe there's something again. I just want to. Before we move on. I can't believe we're talking about norms, but I'll do it anyway.
- [16:57]
Sarah Longwell
Sarah loves norm. Anytime that you want to protect a norm, you should make sure to mention it. So Sarah knows you haven't completely gone to the dark side.
- [17:06]
Tim Miller
Every time you do this, I want to have a beer and shout norms. Like our young listeners won't even get that reference. But it's funny to me.
- [17:14]
JVL
Isn't there something wrong with having a Supreme Court justice who is willing to say after the fact, not even like during the heat of the election season, but after the fact for no reason. Just venting to reporter. This person who is about to be my colleague on the highest. The highest court in our state. They disgust me and I don't want to work with them.
- [17:40]
Tim Miller
Yeah. So I watched this whole interview with this woman. Did you just like. Did you read the transcript or did you watch her?
- [17:46]
JVL
No, I watched.
- [17:47]
Tim Miller
I watched two. I. I can't believe this person sits on a Supreme Court.
- [17:53]
JVL
Right.
- [17:53]
Tim Miller
She was awful. She was horrendous from top to bottom. That part that you read is like true, but it's all. But it was the whole thing that she was ranting about. I was like, who put this person on like that?
- [18:05]
JVL
Maybe somebody from, from Newsmax or something.
- [18:09]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it was an embarrassment. She was embarrassing. And, and also it was like wildly unprofessional. Like I was watching it and I was cringing at just the basic professional courtesy one pays to like even if you, you say, look, I don't agree with politics. Yeah.
- [18:24]
JVL
Thomas wouldn't say that.
- [18:25]
Tim Miller
You'd say like I'm.
- [18:27]
Sarah Longwell
This is Alito.
- [18:28]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Mrs. Alito. That's true.
- [18:30]
JVL
No, maybe I don't even know the Mrs. Alito.
- [18:32]
Tim Miller
I have been wondering if any of the Democrat the more left leaning Supreme Court justices have been flying their flags upside down of their houses lately.
- [18:40]
JVL
Now this is Thomas, my house.
- [18:42]
Sarah Longwell
But Tyler made us put up a jazz Jazz Fest flag instead. I do I just my observation on this woman, a Supreme Court justice is I think that as bad as you guys think. And by you guys, I mean my besties here on the co panel, but also the listeners. As bad as you think. Like the median state level Republican elected official is right now, they're like a hundred times worse than you think. Like the Trump. We're in year 10 now of Trump. Like any of the like relatively normal type pillars of their community, businessman or woman types that were that wanted to run for state senate. Like all of them have checked out of politics unless they had their brains broken by Covid and they're like the businessman that you know, had a, had a mask protest outside their store or whatever that person's running. But you know, like that is, that's it. Like these people, this lady. Everyone can go watch this video. This judge, excuse me judge. I don't mean to disrespect the lady judge. This lady judge, you watch this video, I bet she's like smack in the middle of the bell curve of Wisconsin Republicans as far as temperament knowledge.
- [20:04]
JVL
But I'm sure she gives a fair hearing to the cases that come before her.
- [20:11]
Sarah Longwell
I mean the Republican that won the the special against Waltz, Randy Fine is such disgusting slob. Such a horrible person. I mentioned the other day I had a friend Instagram me. They're like, I knew that guy in high school and he tried to choke me to death. Don't know if that's true or not. Randy. Just telling you what somebody said about you. Here's something that I know that is true. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, like at his press conference today Was like, I did everything I could to get to make this guy be a college president because we didn't want to deal with him so much. Like, like this is like this. Ron DeSantis looked at the new congressman from Florida and was like, you are such a clown that I don't even want to have to be in meetings with you. That's kind of the quality that is being produced now, like up and down the ballot.
- [21:02]
JVL
All right, so let me, let me ask you both about the results last night. What do you make of the erosion in Republican numbers? Is it meaningful? Is it just an artifact of the. The change in the coalitions and the turnout and off your elections? What is there anything.
- [21:21]
Sarah Longwell
I have two really quick thoughts. Sarah can kind of go off on this. I think it's mostly an artifact of the change in the coalitions. On top of that, the fact the first 71 days, all they've done is piss people off in the administration. I think that is. That also played a little part. The only meaningful thing long term that I took from last night is, and I think I said this with Sam on the daily pod is if you are out there listener, and you're in a state Senate district that's like the Republican won by like 12 points last time, you should throw your hat in the ring this time. I do think long term viability of the party, the Democrats not in the wilderness, like, none. I don't. None of that. I do think in 2026 though, there will be an environment that will be potentially quite ripe for Democrats to win in some pretty red places. And I think that's in part, again, the change in the coalition and the fact that these guys are just doing everything possible to piss people off.
- [22:21]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I mean, when I saw them pull Elise Stefanik, I was sort of like, that's an R +20, guys. Like, are you really that nervous? That seems crazy. Like you're gonna make her forfeit her entire career. She gave up leadership. Like, you must be so freaked out. And I kind of thought they were overreacting to do that. But looking at that race last night and the swings in Florida and we didn't. Haven't talked about the. The Florida one much, but like, they were cut. Trump was in plus 30 districts. I mean, the. Randy Fine was in. Flake was in plus 30 districts. Right. And they cut those margins in half. You're looking at 19 point swings, 15 point swings. Okay. No, they probably needed to be worried about Elise Stefanik. And it is, I think it is absolutely the changing coalition on top of, I think an amped up Democratic Party that is, had no outlet for anything and is desperate for an outlet. And so they showed up. That's why I said the number from Dane county, where, you know, the numbers for Democrats outperformed Hillary Clinton. Like people were more jazzed up for this off year Supreme Court election than they were in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. Like that's a thing.
- [23:32]
JVL
Right? Do we think that the Democratic Party is going to have it together to, as you say, Tim, like just go and find quality candidates in all of these state level races, any place that was Trump +20 or less, to be able to have a shot? How hard is that to do? Logistically?
- [23:50]
Tim Miller
It's hard. Here's. Well, here's what you need, right? What you saw in 2018. So so many of my favorite political figures right now, Abigail Spanberger, Alyssa Slotkin, but even like AOC, like they were all 2018 elections. And that was when people, that was when you saw your first big backlash to Trump and it was almost entirely organic. Now there were organizations like Run for Something and other places that popped up to help support these sort of new candidates because people came from all walks of life. That's when Lizzie Fletcher in Texas was elected. So it's like all these. And it was a lot of women. It was a lot of women that was with like Amy McGrath did not win, but like people kind of like it was. So the backlash was so big that people were like, I don't know, maybe in Kentucky you might have this Amy McGrath person could beat McConnell, which that was chasing fool's gold. But that is how big the momentum was and how organic it was. Every woman with like a military CIA background jumped in and bartending got in and started running. So I do think the energy right now could lend itself to that. You do need some infrastructure to harness it. But it's really driven when people feel personally like they cannot sit on the sidelines because things are so crazy. They feel like they got to get in the game. And I could see that, that kind of energy starting to percolate.
- [25:15]
JVL
Yeah.
- [25:15]
Sarah Longwell
I just want to be really specific about what my recommendation is because the Amy McGrath example is a great example. I specifically said state Senate races because those are the kinds of things where like there's there are low turnout affairs. The Democrats are super excited. You know, the more intensity there is around race, the more interest, you know, the tougher it's going to get in those red, red states.
- [25:37]
JVL
Maybe I should run for the Jersey state Senate.
- [25:40]
Sarah Longwell
I think you should.
- [25:41]
Tim Miller
You should. I know how much you love the people.
- [25:43]
Sarah Longwell
I love kissing babies.
- [25:45]
JVL
Nothing makes me happier than going out and meeting the people. All right, well, you know what? Speaking about. About Democrat. I am dying to hear your take, Sarah. Best friend of mine on Cory Booker.
- [26:04]
Tim Miller
He makes you weak in the knees, doesn't he?
- [26:06]
JVL
Because I have been having a lot of feelings. I made a mixtape last night. I sat and I got you pushed.
- [26:14]
Tim Miller
Record and play at the same time.
- [26:16]
JVL
I did a mixtape. I put some, you know, some cure on it, a little bit of In Excess, some new order, you know, the good stuff from my youth. And I. It really. It really touched me. I don't know if it was the Jesus stuff or the civil rights stuff or the. All the bipartisan. Like, you know, this isn't left or right. It's up and down. I mean, he was.
- [26:45]
Tim Miller
He reached the triad.
- [26:46]
JVL
He was speaking to you too, wasn't he, Sarah?
- [26:50]
Tim Miller
There was. There was stuff in there for me. He spoke for 24 hours. About 25 hours, so 25 hours.
- [26:56]
JVL
So there's something for everybody.
- [26:58]
Tim Miller
There was something for everybody. If you listen to the whole thing. Although what he said mattered quite a bit less than the fact that he did it. You know, this is one of those things where, I mean, what he said, there was a lot of good stuff and what he said, but it was the. I think it was the putting into a physical embodiment. Right. Again, people's desperate desire for people to do things simple and symbolism, like matters a little bit. They wanted to see somebody express their outrage. And so, like him putting himself in a space of physical distress. He didn't pee. This was always my question about people who do the long filibuster is like, what do you do about the bathroom? Like, if someone taps in for you, do you get to run to the bathroom? Answers no. He personally dehydrated himself. He stopped eating, and then he performed for 25 hours of talking.
- [27:53]
JVL
Thurmond, I believe, famously wore a fisherman's friend. People would like to Google that can go ahead.
- [27:59]
Tim Miller
That's a diaper, right?
- [28:01]
JVL
No. No, it's not. Hip waders. Hip waders. So if you're out fishing in the. The middle of the river, river run through it style. And you're out there for eight hours and you don't want to get out because you got to pee, you would have installed in your hip waders. A fisherman's friend.
- [28:20]
Tim Miller
Interesting.
- [28:20]
JVL
Again, I don't want to spoil it, Sarah. There's so many mysteries about men, and I do not want to spoil that.
- [28:26]
Sarah Longwell
I'm confused by this. It's less about the male anatomy mystery, but just like being out in the woods, you know, that's not. It's like. It's like me and Sarah both have half the knowledge necessary to understand this joke. She's been fly fishing. I have a penis. But neither of us have the full amount of information to put it together.
- [28:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [28:46]
JVL
I don't want to ruin the surprise, so. But tell me, Sarah, come on. Did you. Did it give you.
- [28:52]
Tim Miller
I was just going to tell you. Did I ever tell you about the time I met Cory Booker? And I just was meeting him for the first time, and he. He wrapped. He's enormous. He wrapped his big, wonderful arms around me, and I felt enveloped in love. And I have loved Cory Booker ever since. I thought he was corny when he ran in 2020, but I've always liked him. He has beautiful eyes. Yeah. He's like an incredibly warm human. And I thought, there, look. I. Yeah, I. It was one of those things where I wasn't invested. I, like, wasn't invested. And then, like, as it went on, I got invested. And then I, like, decided to watch the last quarter. It was like, this game is on and it's good, and I'm gonna sit and watch. And, like, he knew he was coming to an end, so, like, he was really turning it on there when he knew people were watching. And it was lovely. It was wonderful. Doesn't change anything, but it was lovely.
- [29:48]
JVL
Our Joe Perdicone noted last night, because Joe's on the Hill all the time, that Booker is weirdly and universally liked by everyone, like the security people, the pages staff. He somehow remembers everybody's name and is always asking people, like, oh, you know, how are you doing? And checking in with them. And so he is like, again, he's just, you know, the guy's not Seneca.
- [30:15]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. He seems like a nice person to me.
- [30:17]
JVL
He's a good guy.
- [30:18]
Sarah Longwell
And I was positive. I've already kind of done my ode to Corey both on Nicole and on the Daily Pod. So I was happy that he did it. People need to do stuff like this and to try it. It's hard to predict what's going to land. So I was total. I thought it was totally wonderful that he did it. I think that he thinks I have it on good authority that he thinks this is part of a broader effort to give it another go on the presidential side. I'm a little more skeptical of that. Have you ever seen any of his tiktoks no, Corey does his tiktoks where it's like the camera is way too close to his face and. And his eyes are really big and he's kind of. He's kind of breathing and sweating and it's just a little too much. Like the energy is just a little too much. But I. I think that it's, you know, I think that there's something here. I think that other people could maybe learn from it who might be able to execute it better. And I. I have no doubt that he's well liked.
- [31:22]
Tim Miller
I'm pro this, though, from a. I have argued this the whole, like in this, this fallow months where nothing is growing. The idea of doing something is better than nothing. And I. I feel like other people figure like he. I would. I'm never going to. You know, we're sort of demanding people get up, say something, make a splash, call a call. Like he did that. He held the lectern. He made people pay attention. He made himself a story. That is. That is the way. And if. And if presidential ambitions are at the heart of it, I'll argue for that, too. I think people should be more ambitious in this moment. Go make your case. Go. I want 20 more people.
- [32:04]
JVL
Do a podcast. Invite Charlie Kirk on it.
- [32:07]
Tim Miller
Don't do that. This is the problem. This is actually, I would say of all the people who have tried to do something to break out in these moments, like Schumer or like Corey's is so far probably one of the best. Not as good as Mallory. Mallory McMorrow's launch ad, which is really good. Murphy.
- [32:26]
JVL
Chris Murphy has been great.
- [32:27]
Tim Miller
Chris Murphy has been good.
- [32:29]
JVL
AOC with the rally. It's been great. There's some green shoots. All right. Because we got to keep moving. The three of us have not yet been together to talk about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the gentleman from Maryland who, oopsie. Was sent to a El Salvador in gulag. Sarah, we haven't talked about this, but I'm interested.
- [32:54]
Tim Miller
This is for Tim. This is. I mean, I'm not. I don't know.
- [32:57]
JVL
Tim and I have gone, why don't I.
- [32:59]
Sarah Longwell
Why don't I just give it. Give a positive opinion and then Sarah can add to it. Because there's something that I haven't said about this since. Since I think we've last done a couple. And I've talked about this on every show, but since I've last talked about it, you know, the government is leaning in a little more than they have been. And some of these Other cases about how this person is actually is Ms. 13. This person, the spokesperson, spokeswoman for DHS who used to be the spokeswoman for Vivek, Trisha McLaughlin. Tricia, that said that he is a, I think she said human trafficker. Are these involved in human trafficking? And, and I think that like it is important and I think that this playbook is why a lot of Democrats aren't talking about it. Because they are worried that they are going to get out over their skis and defend somebody like Kilmar, like this man, and that it's going to turn out that they were actually part of some horrible thing. And I want to say I don't care. Not that I don't care. I care. I hope this person is not part of human trafficking. It's not really a relevant defense to their fuck up. Okay? That's like, again, this is not how something works in America. It's. It works this way in other countries or it's this way in fascist countries where the government says we are going to send someone to Siberia. And, and when asked about it, they say, oh, well, he was part of the gang, you know, he was criminal. And it's like, well, okay, show me Trisha McLaughlin with her fancy handbag. Tweeting that this guy is a human trafficker isn't enough because there were lawyers at the DOJ who could have included that information in a filing and they have not done yet that. Yet. Nobody's done that when they're under oath yet. Only Trisha McLaughlin on Twitter. And I've said this several times. I not only I assume that at least one of the people that I've talked about on all these shows was actually doing something bad because I don't know, look, there's a lot of bad in the world and I don't know exactly. And people contain multitudes that I guess it's possible that the guy with the rainbow autism awareness tattoo is also a gang banger. And it's just like Tony Soprano with the ducks. And he's got a soft spot for autism kids. Maybe. I find that extremely unlikely. It's not based on any of the evidence that's been provided, but maybe you would assume in one of these cases, but these guys are going to continue to lean in on this and that is how they're going to silence people. That's how they're going to try to get people to move on from this story because people are going to be afraid to speak out and say, okay, well, I'm not going to defend this guy, because who knows? They say he's a human trafficker. Maybe he is. I don't want an ad against me next time being like, Tammy Baldwin supports human traffickers. So I'm just not going to say anything. And I just got to say that that is why it is our job at the commentariat and among the advocacy groups and among their lawyers and among the media to, like, humanize these people. It's not necessarily the senator's job to do that. It is their job to say, no, in America, if you're going to send somebody to a fucking concentration camp in another country, you got to demonstrate that they broke the law in a court or in front of an immigration judge. So that's my added thought on this from what I've already said.
- [36:26]
Tim Miller
First of all, I just want to say Tim has been really a hero on this in sort of making a.
- [36:33]
Sarah Longwell
Little overstated, but thank you.
- [36:34]
Tim Miller
Okay. You're right, actually, I don't. You're not a hero on it. You just. You talk a lot. But you focusing on this has been. I think. I think it has mattered a great deal in terms of people also focusing on these stories. Here's something from the voter's standpoint, though, that I think is difficult. There are now a bunch of these stories, and it is getting difficult to tell one from the other, right? We are deporting people. Maybe they're part of the gangs. Is it the gay barber? Is it the autism tattoo guy? Is it the Maryland dad? Are they the same person? Right? Like, you can see quickly. And so then all it has to be is that one of them ends up actually being a gang member. And this is where the difference between the Twitter fights that you're having, right? Like, J.D. vance is actively on Twitter slugging away at this, saying. And he's lying. He's lying because he said this guy is a convicted trended agua guy. And then you go read the court filing, and it's like, oh, he wasn't convicted. Somebody accused him of it, but he was not convicted.
- [37:40]
Sarah Longwell
Technically, they accused him of being Ms. 13, which is not actually the gang that we are in a supposed war with that underpins the Alien Enemies act authority that they're. Anyway, just if we're being.
- [37:50]
Tim Miller
But you can see how they could muddle this so quickly that to Tim's point, if you were to say. Now, if one of them. They were to present evidence that one of them. Because this is what they say, right? They're like, well, we have. We know. And you're like, okay, well, show us the evidence that you know. And nobody will. But if. If they do have classified evidence or they do have some. Some evidence and they put it forward about one of them, it will. The public now is only engaged at the mo. At the highest level of did they wrongly deport somebody or didn't they? And they don't know the difference between the various stories. And so it is if. If. But, like, actually. But I. At this point, Tim's right. One of these could be sort of like a false flag. And it was interesting. It's sort of like what Jeffrey Goldberg said. One of the reasons he didn't think that Signal Chat was necessarily a real one is because they were. He knows that there's attempts to, like, catfish reporters with fake stories so that they run with something and then it. And then it impeaches their credibility, impugns their own credibility. Right? And so, like, everybody's kind of on alert for this, that they know they could get in there and say, you're. You're. You. You did this wrong. You did this wrong. And then suddenly they produce evidence on one of them and they know, meaning the Trump administration knows that the American public can't tell the stories apart. I really learned this during the Trump court cases where it was almost worse to have so many indictments in so many different jurisdictions because at some point it became white noise for voters and they couldn't tell them apart. It wasn't like the cumulative effect, like, overwhelmed it. It was that they just couldn't tell the difference. And so the dumb question, yeah, the.
- [39:32]
Sarah Longwell
Strategic question, is there an inverse of this, though? Because I mentioned this, I believe. Forget, maybe it was on Tuesday's pod, but, like, there is a poll out from CBS, I think YouGov, that was like, 4,735 people are like, against this. It's like, pretty good. I mean, you know, not overwhelming, but whatever. And. And in that same poll, even a majority of Republicans were like, yeah, we.
- [39:56]
JVL
Probably got one wrong.
- [39:57]
Sarah Longwell
Like, they asked, like, do you think that these are all gang members? Or whatever. And so anyway, a, it showed that people are paying attention. So you have that right. Like, that is being noticed, which is not. Like, there are a lot of things they're doing that aren't being even noticed. But I do wonder, strategically, is there an inverse of that, which is like, people, except for the core 35% of Trump base, are not for randomly taking people based on tattoos and sending them to foreign prisons. Like, like, there are even Trump voters. Jvl I promise you that are not for that. Some, maybe not as many as we'd hope. Maybe not even a majority. But if 40% of Trump voters are against that, that's a big majority of the country. And so is that the. Then the obligation to find the one really unimpeachable case that make the gay makeup artist the face?
- [40:45]
Tim Miller
I was just gonna say, do you know which one it is? It's the gay barber.
- [40:48]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. Do the event. Do the inverse of the Alvin Bragg case. Right. Like, the worst one became the most well known. In this case, it's like the clearest one becomes the most well known.
- [40:58]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And you basically use people's sort of not prejudices, but their stereotype, their stereotyping against them, where they're like, is the gay makeup artist also a gang member? That seems really far fetched.
- [41:10]
JVL
And I feel like you can make that those gangs. Part of the reason are so bad, Sarah, is because they're also woke and so they're really welcoming of the LGBTQ communities.
- [41:21]
Tim Miller
Somebody's got to cover up all the face tattoos. You know, they need a lot of bronzer to cover that.
- [41:26]
JVL
The Trump administration is at war with them because they're both shipping drugs into our country and woke values.
- [41:32]
Sarah Longwell
I'm sorry, just. We might. If you have one other thing to say, this is fine. But I have to say this. Did you see the Trump bleach where he seemed to think that the fentanyl was gonna get tariffed?
- [41:42]
Tim Miller
Yes, yes, yes. I love that it's a legal trade. It's just legal. It's just legal commerce that you can tax in tariff.
- [41:48]
Sarah Longwell
So you're joking. Jvl. But, like, might Trump not be confused? Maybe he does think that it's a woke gang that's bringing in the fentanyl and that they're coming in through normal trade. How does he think the tariff works? It does seem like we are here at Liberation Day. The Liberation press conference conference is happening as we talk. And it's like he doesn't fundamentally, I don't, I think, understand, like, just the fundamentals of the commerce, like who takes what money where.
- [42:15]
JVL
He does know. This has been clear from the start. He doesn't understand what a tariff is and how it works and who pays it. Okay, we got to keep moving, but I do have one final question on this. One of the things that I find most alarming about the Abrego Garcia case is the government's position that they can't possibly do anything. So the government's position is we can't do any remedy. That is impossible. How could you ask us to get this guy back? The government was able to get the Tates released, right?
- [42:50]
Tim Miller
Well, there's a will, there's a way, and in this particular case, there is no will.
- [42:55]
JVL
But let me. But let me. But I think there's a reason that there is no will. And this is. So his lawyer, Simon Sandoval Moshenburg, pointed out that if the government can remove people in error and without recourse, can't they also do that to US Citizens? So if the government could pick up you or me or Joe Q. Public off the street and get us down to the setcom or whatever it's called quickly enough that by the time it hit the courts were already there, they will have established the precedent that, yeah, it was an oopsie, but there is no recourse.
- [43:39]
Sarah Longwell
I think, actually, why not? I mean, sure. Like, sure, they could do anything if they decided to be totally lawless. But I just mean, like, in this narrow case, the issue at hand is that a US Citizen would have standing to take this up to the Supreme Court. Whereas that. Whereas Gregory Garcia does.
- [44:04]
JVL
Once you're gone, you no longer have standing because you're not right. You're not here.
- [44:07]
Sarah Longwell
You're a US Citizen. Unless the government, I guess the government could then argue that they had denaturalized us or whatever. You know, it just. It takes you into a different thing. Like part of the problem here, and this is a problem for some of the other. Some of the Venezuelans is like their lawyers, they don't have. If you're on US Soil, you have standing because, you know, you're in whatever jurisdiction you're in. But if you're in a third country and you're not a U.S. citizen or you're not here lawfully, as is in the case of Abrego Garcia, who is. Who had kind of overextended asylum and he had. Had a no deportation whatever order. So, you know, it's just the area is a lot grayer. So I, I guess, I mean, look, yeah, we should all be worried about. About the fact that they're doing all this, but I do think that there's. It would be a little different for citizens.
- [44:54]
JVL
All right, guys, I'm looking at the clock. I'm going to be mindful of the clock because we are on the clock. You guys, which one you want? The gutting of the NIH and the CDC or Ron Klain?
- [45:11]
Sarah Longwell
Talking about Ron Klain?
- [45:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I also want to do Ron Klain just Because it's just because I'm mad about it.
- [45:16]
JVL
But here's the thing about it. I know Bad JVL doing that. That's bad Tim and bad Tim.
- [45:20]
Sarah Longwell
I discussed the NIH stuff with Sam. People can go check it out on the daily pod and it's very bad. I think it's horrible. I just don't have a lot of things to say about it. It's not in my area of expertise. I have a lot to say about Ron Kling.
- [45:32]
Tim Miller
I have, I have one thing to say about it. Can I say one thing about. So first of all, go read. John Cones reporting. Our new Jonathan Cohn, who we hired, is doing some of the best stuff on this, if you want to go check it out. About the thing, the, the, the thing that I just want to emphasize, if you are a parent of a child who has a congenital disease, if you are an older person who, but like, let's say you're 60 years old and you've got a certain kind of cancer, but there were trials going, there were studies, and you have hope that somebody there was going to be a breakthrough soon that could have helped. They were onto something. People don't realize how much the government does to. And Meghan McCain tweeted about this because NIH had done a ton of work. Her father, John McCain was treated there for geoblastoma, the brain cancer. And I just think there's a lot of people in positions of being on tenderhooks in the hopes that there is a breakthrough in some way because they love somebody or they themselves are facing, you know, either a death sentence or chronic disease or something else. And you cannot just turn off research and then turn it back on again, like the loss here. And what's so frustrating is one of those things just not going to be felt for a really long time. But I think this, this is one that people should, that really hits close to home for people that not just from a messaging standpoint, but like, this is going to have really serious ramifications down the road. Anyway, sorry, we can move on.
- [47:04]
JVL
Okay. So we have a new book coming out by reporter Chris Whipple and excerpts have hit. One of the people who spoke with was Biden consigliere Ron Klain. I'm just going to read some excerpts. Biden quote, didn't know what Trump had been saying and couldn't grasp what, what the back and forth was he claims there for. Brought in for debate prep, Biden left preparation and fell asleep by the pool. He was obsessed with foreign leaders and said, quote, these guys say I'm doing a great job as president so I must be a great president. And had nothing to say about a second term other than finish the job. What about the claim? Was startled and had never seen Biden so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Hmm. Thoughts?
- [48:04]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. In addition to that, Ron was like, tried to make some suggestions about some policies like about family leave. And Biden just wouldn't like he said. Wasn't even engaging with him. He said it was the worst debate prep he's ever seen and he was very concerned that it was gonna be a disaster on debate night.
- [48:23]
JVL
Biden's response to this was, that sounds like a spending plan to me. Didn't want to talk about these proposals because he thought, wow, it sounds like government spending.
- [48:33]
Sarah Longwell
He already did a lot of that.
- [48:35]
JVL
Great.
- [48:36]
Sarah Longwell
These people are villains is my main thing. And I just think it is important to internalize it and accept it. And you know, people are, I guess people contain multitudes. So villains or people that do villainous things maybe is a better word, is a better way to put it can mend. As a bunch of former Republicans, we all know some people who would fit into that boat. People who made bad judgment calls over various times and accepted it. But you have to accept that you made a bad judgment call and understand why you did and go forward. And we are here because these fucking people. And my blood pressure was just through the roof reading this article. It's just like it is crazy. It's crazy that they let it all go on for another month afterwards. Like it was crazy that they let it go on like all the way up until. And I guess I understand the rationale of just going fingers crossed and hoping that he does well in the debate. Because who the hell knows, maybe you know, you get lucky, he rises to the occasion. But like that, like the stakes were way too high for fingers crossed. And by the way, even if you're running against Nikki Haley, it's not very respectful of the American people that you serve to say, I'm going to put this person who can't make it through a two hour debate prep without taking a nap and put them forth as somebody that is going to be the President of the United states for another four years till he's 86. It was just irresponsible and villainous and you have to learn from it. And we might not get to learn from it because it was that disastrous of a fucking choice.
- [50:28]
JVL
Sarah, I want to read this to you. Klain scheduled two mock debates. The first was scheduled to last 90 minutes but McLean called it off after 45. The president's voice was shot and so was his grasp of the subject. The second debate, 25 minutes into the second mock debate, the President was done for the day. Quote, I'm just too tired to continue and I'm afraid of losing my voice here. And I feel bad. He said, quote, I just need some sleep. I'll be fine tomorrow. He went off to bed. Hi Sarah. So I like to let bad Sarah out.
- [51:02]
Tim Miller
This is not bad Sarah. And actually I want to talk to our listeners for a second because whenever we talk about Biden people get really upset with us and they're like why are you guys looking backward when Trump's doing all this stuff? And let me be really clear about why I'm so angry. It's because Donald Trump is president right now. All of the things we are dealing with is because of the choices these people made. We have spent. I had Jen Psaki on my show on the focus group and we were listening to people who didn't vote. It's a pretty maddening show listening to people who didn't vote. Especially because it wasn't.
- [51:37]
Sarah Longwell
Have you done any non maddening shows lately? Think about that, that might be something to consider.
- [51:43]
Tim Miller
You know what this weekend's is, people will like it. I have Will Sommer, another new. We did his hazing, his hazing of making him listen to a bunch of like Trump base voters and we talked about the right wing media ecosystem. It's a more fun one. But the thing is is that I think for people like us, and this is what I want listeners to really internalize instead of just saying I'm so sick of you guys beating up on Biden, understand how this project of the bulwark, this thing that we did was all because of what a deep threat we believe Donald Trump was to this country. And so we believed that everybody ought to be working in whatever way they could to defeat Donald Trump. And so the idea that the people, because one of the things that we heard from the Biden team around this time is that well, if they thought Biden was going to perform like that, they never would have put him out there. And what's insane about these stories is oh no, it's not like he had great debate prep and they thought he was going to be fine and they were shocked by the performance on stage. They could see how compromised he was. And I don't know Ron personally exactly, but I'VE always respected Ron. But I also know that Ron Klain was one of the very small group of people that said he should run again for a second term. But the idea that they, and the idea that they would talk about democracy, this has always been my deep frustration. You're saying that democracy's on the line, the fate of the country is on the line, and you just let this happen. You could see it falling apart in front of you. The rest of us didn't have access to that. The rest of us were doing everything we could trying to scrounge up Trump voters who weren't going to vote for him again, raising money, doing. And then, and then one of the things that I argued about with Jen is like. And then what? You're going to hang Liz Cheney out to dry? It's Liz Cheney's fault. No. These decisions are why Donald Trump is the president right now. Democracy was on the line. All of that was true. And a small group of people made catastrophically irresponsible decisions that led us all here. And now we're all dealing with it. And so don't tell us that we don't get to be enraged. We get to be enraged because it's mattered a great deal to us, just as I think it does to you. But everyone's like, oh, you're beating up on Biden. No, he had a responsibility to this country and the people around him had a responsibility to this country. And, and that's what got us here. He was unfit to do it. The American people could see it. And now they're going around lecturing people, saying the party lost its mind. How dare they turn on him. Like, this is delusional stuff and it's the reason we're here.
- [54:27]
JVL
I wouldn't mind the delusions. What I mind again, I know we got to get out of here. What I mind is people not saying the things that they know are true. Yeah, right. Like I, I actually don't. If somebody was watching Biden and really just thought, no, no, it's actually going to be fine. Because that's, that's just a judgment. Right. And people make wrong judgments all the time. What seems to be the case here? And maybe it. This is again, we're working on excerpts of Whipple's reporting. Maybe it's not case the case. What seems to be the point is that you have a case of Biden fire advisors saying one thing in public and in private saying something different.
- [55:08]
Tim Miller
Remember when they talk about self important podcasters. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but, like, they came for all of us, too.
- [55:15]
JVL
I don't even care about that. Like, that's. I. I just. The stakes are really high. And so when the stakes are high, you don't. You don't. The public doesn't owe you to be right. Right. Or you don't owe the public to be right. You just owe the public to be honest.
- [55:33]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And the other rationale thing, if, when you hear it and this isn't in this book, then the other thing that drives me fucking insane that you hear from these people in private and in private conversations that leak is like, well, they didn't think Kamala could win and think she was up for it, et cetera, et cetera. It was like, you picked her when you were 70 fucking 8, and then you saddled her with the root causes of immigration problem and was like, good luck. Go out there with that kid. Like, you could have not done that. You could have picked somebody that said that they weren't going to run for president and that you wanted to be a torture. We could go through all this. But also their treatment of Kamala was so fucking bad and so unhelpful. And so it's like one of these things where, again, it's like, I can even understand the judgment call going up to the debate. That's like, we're here. We're going to try to gas them up. We'll see what happens. And you have the debate. When that debate ended, the fact that they were not filled with shame and were not like, guys, we're going to do everything we can, whatever, you know, if Conway needs to throw us under the bus, great. We'll lie and say she wanted to do the border harder. I'll do whatever. Yes. Or if we need to have an open primary, you know what I mean? At that moment, they all knew that they were responsible. They all were in debate prep. They saw it happen. And then they spent not just a month trying to put weekend of Bernie's up there, but then the rest of the campaign pressuring her to, like, stay in line and not set her up for success. So the whole thing is sick. The only funny laugh I got out of it was, did you see the line where Clayne said that they were like, well, they're asking what he would say if Trump said this. And Biden was like, I was just going to look at him like, he's like, I'm just going to give him a confused look. Because then people understand that what he said was stupid and Ron was like, no. Then people will think that you're confused.
- [57:26]
Tim Miller
He's like, I'm just gonna look befuddled.
- [57:28]
Sarah Longwell
I'm just gonna look befuddled. It's like, yeah, success. That was one part of the debate prep that wasn't success. You did look befuddled.
- [57:35]
JVL
Guys, good show. Long show. Hit, like, hit. Subscribe. Follow the channel, follow the feed. We'll be back next week.